Focus on Oulton

Thérèse OultonPrecipitate and Passage, 1989

Focus on Thérèse Oulton

Each month we take a closer look at one of our Broadgate artists; this month is the turn of Thérèse Oulton, the artist who created Precipitate and Passage, a pair of oils on canvas located in the upper level reception lobby of 155 Bishopsgate.

Mysterious and enticing, these two works by Thérèse Oulton resonate with mist and the warm tones associated with the onset of early September. Appearing as almost one in the symmetrical setting of the upper reception lobby of 155 Bishopsgate, the crevices and mountain sides suggested by Passage are somehow sustained by the life giving element offered by the closely sited Precipitate. Mainly abstract in conception, the works hint at the sublime and mystical elements found within nature.

Appealing to the Romantic painting tradition of capturing the expressive and emotional components of landscape, Oulton creates disparate and mysterious spaces which suggest at other worlds.The rich and rhythmical patterns are densely worked through thick layers of impasto paint and, yet, the works retain a figuration, a delicacy of touch and a vulnerability which sets them aside from pure abstraction.

Born in Shrewsbury, Oulton studied at Central Saint Martins in London during the 1970s and at London's Royal College of Art in the early 1980s. Nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in 1987, and celebrated for the fluidity of her brushstrokes, Oulton has exhibited her paintings and works on paper throughout Europe and America. Works by the artist are included in major international public collections including those held by the Metropolitan Museum in New York, London's Tate Britain and Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. Oulton is based in London. Read Thérèse's full biography here.

You can see further works by Thérèse on display at Marlborough Fine Art from 5 to 27 September. Titled Elsewhere, this exhibition showcases recent landscape works by the artist and is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by feminist thinker and writer Jacqueline Rose. Oulton was also included in a publication launched by Bloomsbury on 11 September; Women in Dark Times by Jacqueline Rose revealing the times and inner thoughts of some of the most creative women of the 20th and 21st centuries.